Hasta La Ideas

These previously unseen photographs show the faceted modular structure of the Baku Crystal Hall in Azerbaijan, which was designed and completed in just eight months (+ slideshow).

The building, which was presented earlier this month at the Inside Festival in Singapore, had to be designed and constructed simultaneously to be ready in time to host last year’s Eurovision Song Contest, so German firm GMP Architekten collaborated closely with contractors Alpine Bau Deutschland and Nüssli throughout the process.

Conceived as both a concert hall and a sports stadium, the 25,000-seat stadium comprises a lightweight steel structure with a faceted membrane facade intended to resemble cut crystal.

According to Nussli’s Claus Kruppa, it was originally planned as a temporary structure, but was subtly altered during construction to enable it to remain in place for longer.

“A small change in the drawings, and now it’s going to be there for 30-40 years,” he said.

The building is located on a peninsula outside the centre of Baku. Its facade is covered with 9500 LED lights, which bring the structure to life after dark.

GMP Architekten has worked on several venues for international events. In 2011 the firm completed four stadiums for the World University Games in Shenzhen, while three of its stadiums featured in the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

Photography is by Marcus Bredt.

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by GMP Architekten appeared first on Dezeen.

GMP Architekten has won a competition to design a 1.2 million-square-metre exhibition centre for Tianjin, China (+ slideshow).

With 400,000 square metres of exhibition space, the National Convention and Exhibition Centre will be one of the largest exhibition centres in the world and will be constructed in the west of the city between the historic centre and a development zone on the coastline.

German firm GMP Architekten has planned a linear grid of 32 equal-sized exhibition halls, which will be constructed in two phases on opposites sides of Haigu Road.

Two large entrance halls will be positioned at the centre of the grid as a north-to-south axis. Tree-like columns will support the roof of both structures, while an elevated walkway will cut across the centre of each one to direct visitors into the single-storey exhibition spaces from above.

For larger exhibitions, pairs of halls could be opened out to one another to create 25,000-square-metre spaces.

The proposals also include the addition of hotel accommodation, a congress centre, offices and administration facilities.

GMP Architekten is best-known for designing large sports and leisure facilities. The firm completed four venues for the 2011 World University Games in Shenzhen and three stadiums for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. See architecture by GMP Architekten on Dezeen.

Above: proposed site plan – click for larger image

Other buildings planned for Tianjin, China’s fourth-largest city, include a pair of museums by Steven Holl and an Olympic-themed museum comprising five connected rings. See more architecture in Tianjin, or see all our stories about China.

Here’s some more information from GMP Architekten:

National Convention and Exhibition Centre, Tianjin, China

With their design for the Tianjin Exhibition Centre, the architects von Gerkan, Marg and Partners (gmp) won the 1st prize of an international design competition. To win the prize the practice had to prevail against competition from FUKSAS, HHP, NBBJ/BIAD and others.

In addition to Shanghai and Guangzhou, Tianjin is now the third city where an exhibition centre of international importance will be built. With a total square area of 1.2 million square metres and dedicated exhibition floor space of 400,000 square metres, one of the world’s largest exhibition centres will be created in the east of China over the next few years.

The site is located at Tianjin Avenue, the main traffic artery which links Tianjin’s historic centre with the so-called Binhai Development Area at the coast of the Yellow Sea. To the north, the site borders the river Haihe which is instrumental in shaping the character of the city. The exhibition ground’s central access avenue runs between these two poles and thus generates a spatial connection between the traffic artery and the waterway.

The design concept proposes two almost identical construction phases. They both consist of a central entrance hall roofed over by filigree canopies, 8 exhibition halls on both sides and a main central thoroughfare that connects the entrance halls with the exhibition halls. The functions of the exhibition centre are rounded off with open-air exhibition space, a congress centre, hotels, offices and administration facilities.

The entire exhibition floor space is located on one level. The central access avenue is elevated 9 m above the exhibition and road level. Access to the exhibition halls and the congress centre is from here. The exhibition halls, which are arranged in a linear layout with a floor space of 12,500 square metres each, can be used separately or combined with an adjoining hall to provide a total of 25,000 square metres of space.
The shed-type roof structure of the halls allows the ingress of daylight. With a display of gardens, open air areas and restaurants, the circulation areas provide a convivial atmosphere.

Design: Meinhard von Gerkan and Stephan Schütz with Nicolas Pomränke
Project management, competition: Simon Schetter, Patrick Pfleiderer
Team, competition: Helene Käschel, Katja Pötzsch, Jens Förster, Keke Ye, Stefan Hornscheidt, Bernd Gotthardt, Ulrike Finkbeiner, Thilo Zehme, Jan Deml, Zhou Bin, George Liang, Christian Machnacki, Gai Xudong, Wu Di, Wang Jue, Lin Wei
Project management, planning: Stephan Rewolle, Matthias Wiegelmann, Bao Wei
Team, planning: Lin Wei, Tian Xueli, Mulyanto, Wu Di, Stefan Hornscheidt, Yulia Gandasari
Client: Tianjin Planning Bureau
Gross floor area: Messegelände – 1.200.000 square metres, additional space for urban design purposes – 2.150.000 square metres

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Tianjin by GMP Architekten appeared first on Dezeen.

Reed-like steel columns surround another stadium designed by German studio GMP Architekten for the World University Games in Shenzhen.

The green stems support the circular roof of the Bao’an Stadium, which is hosting football matches during the Universiade games.

The suspended membrane roof is stretched across arched supports to create a bubbled surface.

The stadium seats up to 40,000 spectators and will be used for athletics once the games are over.

The closing ceremony for the games takes place on the 23 August.

GMP Architekten also designed a trio of faceted glass stadiums for these games, as illustrated in our earlier story – see all our stories about stadiums by GMP Architekten here.

Photography is by Christian Gahl.

Here are some more details from GMP:

2011 Universiade in Shenzhen

Inauguration of the Sports Center and Bao’an Stadium

To mark the occasion of the Universiade, which will take place from 12th to 23rd August 2011, the Universiade sports center and Bao’an stadium will be opened tomorrow in Shenzhen, southern China. The international com- petitions to come up with a design for the buildings were won in 2006 and 2007 by the designs of architects von Gerkan, Marg and Partners (gmp). The Universiade sports center consists of a stadium, a multifunctional hall and a swimming pool. The stadium in the Bao’an district is designed as an athletics stadium. However, during the 2011 Universiade, it is being used for football matches.

Universiades are World Games for students and are held every other year in winter and summer, hosted by the International University Sports Federation, the Fédération Internationale du Sport Universitaire (FISU). Going by the number of athletes participating, the summer Universiade is the second largest multi-sport event in the world after the Summer Olympics. It was announced in January 2007 that the 26th summer Universiade 2011 was to take place in Shenzhen.

Bao’an stadium

The extensive bamboo forests of southern China were the inspiration for the design, whose slim stanchions carry the weight of the stands and the wide-span roof structure. Visitors pass through the forest of steel supports into the first circulating area of the stadium, and thence go either up the steps to the upper tier or straight on to the lower tier. The image of a bamboo forest is created by the double row of steel supports, where every other in the inner row is connected with the concrete structure of the undulating upper tier, thus carrying the vertical loads of the specta- tor seating. The steel tubes, which are up to 32 m in length, range from 55 cm to 80 cm, varying in accordance with their differing static loads.

A membrane roof suspended from an outer frame was selected to cover the seating areas. With a diameter of 230 m and cantilevering of 54 m on each side of the stands, the roof is carried by 36 pairs of cables whose pre- tensioning is brought together via a circular double tension ring of strand-bundle cables above the pitch. The stadium is designed to hold a capacity of 40,000 spectators.

Competition: 2007 – 1st prize
Design: Meinhard von Gerkan and Stephan Schütz with David Schenke
Project leaders: David Schenke, Li Ran
Staff (design): Jennifer Heckenlaible, Daniela Franz, Zhang Xi, Yin Chao Jie, Zhou Bin, Anna Bulanda-Jansen, Cai Qing, Xu Ji
Staff (execution): Matthias Grünewald, Cai Yu, Wang Le, Wang Li, Zhang Xi, Lucas Gallardo, Zhang Xiao Guang, Sebastian Linack, Li Zheng, Pan Xin, Martin Schulte-Frohlinde
Structural engineering: schlaich bergermann und partner – Sven Plieninger with Wei Chen
Lighting Design: Schlotfeld Licht, Berlin

Chinese partner practice: SCUT South China University of Technology
Client: The Sports Bureau of Bao’an District
Seats: 40,050
Length of the stadium: 245.80 m
Width of the stadium: 245.80 m
Height of the stadium: 39.65 m
Construction period: 2009–2011

See also:

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Kindergarten Sighartstein by Kadawittfeldarchitektur	Stade Bordeaux Atlantique by Herzog & de Meuron	Pharmacy in Koukaki by KLab Architecture

German architects GMP Architekten designed three stadiums for the World Aquatics Championships currently taking place in Shanghai.

The Shanghai Oriental Sports Centre complex includes a multi-purpose stadium, a dedicated indoor aquatics centre, an outdoor swimming venue and a media centre.

Rows of aluminium sails cover the exteriors of the stadiums, which are raised up on artificial islands and surrounded by newly created lakes.

The championships are run by international swimming federation FINA and finish at the end of July.

After the event, the main stadium will be used for boxing, basketball, badminton, ice-hockey and concerts.

Celebrated sports venue architects GMP also designed three football stadiums for the FIFA World Cup in South Africa last year – see the projects »here.

More stories about sports architecture and design on Dezeen »

Photography is by Marcus Bredt.

The following information is from FMP Architekten:

Opening of the Shanghai Oriental Sports Center FINA World Swimming Championships, 16th – 31st July

The sports complex was designed and built by architects von Gerkan, Marg and Partners (gmp), who won the competitive bidding in 2008, and constructed it in under two and a half years. It consists of a hall stadium for several sports and cultural events, a natatorium (swimming hall), an outdoor swimming pool and a media centre. In keeping with a sustainable urban development policy, the SOSC was built on former industrial brownfield land along the Huangpu River. The individual venues are designed so that after the Swimming Championships, they can be used for a variety of other purposes.

Water is the overarching theme of both the park and the architecture of the stadiums and the media centre. It is the connecting element between the buildings, which stand on raised platforms in specially constructed lakes. Thus the round stadiums have a curved lakeside shore round them, while the rectangular Natatorium has a straight lakeside shore. Design affinities and a shared formal idiom and use of materials give the three stadiums structural unity. The steel structures of broad arches with large-format triangular elements made of coated aluminium sheet form double-sided curved surfaces along the frame of the sub-structures, thus evoking sails in the wind.

Hall Stadium

During the FINA World Swimming Championships, pool events and synchronized swimming championships will take place in the Hall Stadium, which later can be used for boxing matches, basketball, badminton or ice-hockey matches and concerts. The hall has a crowd-capacity of 14,000, which can be increased to 18,000 by the use of mobile seating.

The main structure of the closed building with a round ground plan consists of reinforced concrete, while the roof is a steel structure with a 170 m span with aluminium cladding. The parallel steel girders create 35 m-high arcades and include the glass façades of the encircling open foyer.

Natatorium

The Natatorium contains four pools arrayed in a row: two standard-sized, one for diving and a leisure pool. It has over 3,500 fixed seats, which will be expanded to 5,000 for the world championships, to meet FINA requirements. The swimming hall is a closed building with a rectangular ground plan, a main structure of reinforced concrete and a roof structure of sectional steel girders. The roof structure with triangular glass surfaces is around 210 m long, 120 m wide and 22 m high. Direct, intrusive sunlight is forestalled by means of narrow toplights along the beams, without preventing natural daylighting.

Outdoor pool

This swimming complex is located in the open on an artificial island and offers 2,000 fixed stadium seats. For the World Swimming Championships and other outstanding events, capacity will be increased to 5,000 seats. The competition-size diving pool and diving towers are complemented by a competition pool. As in the other stadiums, the roof structure with its external diameter of c. 130 m reflects the round ground-plan of the shell of the building. The inner diameter is around 90m. The roof trusses are carried by the building structure. A lightweight membrane between the modules provides protection against sun and rain.

Media centre

The 80 m high high-rise building is on the northern side of the sports complex. Its 15 floors include a fitness centre, conference rooms and medical care centre, plus VIP and office areas. Because of the even 8.4m grid, the building can be used flexibly. With its external shell of white, perforated aluminium panels, the building inter- prets the undulating shape of the adjacent lake.

Competition 2008 – 1st prize Design Meinhard von Gerkan and Nikolaus Goetze with Magdalene Weiss
Project leader – Chen Ying
Team – Jan Blasko, Lü Cha, Lü Miao, Jörn Ortmann, Sun Gaoyang, Yan Lüji, Jin Zhan, Fang Hua, Martin Friedrich, Fu Chen, Ilse Gull, Kong Rui, Lin Yi, Katrin Löser, Ren Yunping, Alexander Schober, Nina Svensson, Tian Jinghai, Zhang Yan, Zhou Yunkai, Zhu Honghao
Structural engineers – Schlaich Bergermann and Partners
International installations – ARUP
Landscaping – WES & Partner
Chinese partner firm – SIADR, Tongji Design Institute
Capacity, Hall stadium – 18,000 seats
Natatorium – 5,000 seats
Outdoor swimming pool – 5,000 seats
Client – Shanghai Administration of Sports
Construction period – 2009–2011

See also:

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London Olympic Stadium by Populous	Dalian Football Stadium by UNStudio	Moses Mabhida Stadium by GMP Architekten